condescending

Barack Obama graciously allowed that Hillary probably didn't really mean anything by daring to bring up the Kennedy assassination. Of course, we're all going to continue to take it as a given that she should just know not to go around talking about whatever she wants. Anything that could possibly set off Obama's little weakness must be guarded against, because he has a pathological fear of - you know - certain kinds of people. People who are crude and racist and gun-toting and bitter.

Of course, it is understandable that a really fragile person might just assume we're dangerous. We really are that scary, to those who've never seen our kind before.

Bigotry is a problem in this country, all right. Obama is bigoted against white people. And I am bigoted against shrieking, hysterical little men who let their xenophobia rule them.

The problem is, this pathological dread of people who are not like him is just too deep at the heart of the Obama campaign. As Sean Wilentz writes:

The main difference between now and then is the openness of the condescension with which many of Obama's supporters - and, apparently, the candidate himself - hold the crude "low information" types whom they believe dominate the white working class. The sympathetic media coverage of Obama's efforts to explain away his remarks in San Francisco about "bitter," economically-strapped voters who, clinging to their guns, religion, and racism, misdirect their rage and do not see the light, only reinforced his campaign's dismissive attitude. Obama's efforts at rectification were reluctant and half-hearted at best - and he undercut them completely a few days later when he referred derisively, on the stump in Indiana, to a sudden "political flare-up because I said something that everybody knows is true."

(emphasis mine)

"Everybody" means - well, him.

All of which is just one more way of saying what people have been saying about Obama for some time now: one way or another, anything and everything anyone does, it always ends up being all about him.

Is runaway ruling egocentrism really a quality anyone wants in a President?

psychological protectionism

Already there has been a loud chorus of voices telling all Clinton supporters to hold their noses and vote for Obama. No matter how objectionable we may find him, we must do as we are told.

The problem with this approach is that every time we submit to this, it gets worse. It's like making it the customer's responsibility to buy a Ford, instead of making it Ford's responsibility to build a better car.

Compare the mess that is today's Democratic party with how organized and efficient Republicans can be. This is inevitably what protectionism gives those who indulge in it: the competition keeps getting better, while the protected party stays stuck in the past.

The primary reason the Democratic party is in disarray today is the one-way flow of communication. Massachusetts talks to Ohio but never the other way around. The very idea of caring about what Pennsylvania might think is treated as pandering. The party isn't interested in feedback. Their reality hasn't been updating regularly, but they don't even appear to be aware that they're operating with outdated information.

Everything bad that happens this election cycle is happening because the Democrats have been allowed to get away with blaming the voters when the party does not win.